The Gordon

Photo credit: Marine Corps Times

The Gordon

Fallujah, Iraq

December 2004

Most Marines are just kids. There are jocks and nerds, goths and cowboys. There is, however, something different that sets the Marines aside from the stereotypical versions of these American caricatures. They all harbor a latent nack for violence that makes any normal person think, ‘I’m glad they’re on our side.’

    Occasionally a Marine comes along that truly fits the mold of the crayon-eating lunatic that the other military branches like to portray us as. These guys made the rest of us stand back and enjoy the spectacle that these individuals put on in their depravity or their hilarious lack of moral compasses.

    We usually give these folks a machine gun; they’re our modern equivalent of berserkers, and we hold a special place in our hearts and the brunt of our jokes for them, America’s orcs.

    Gordon, however, didn't fit in this class, although he was in the neighborhood. Lance Corporal Gordon was not someone I knew well at first. Years went by before we ever spoke. I knew him by sight. There was no mistaking the five and a half foot machine gunner. His eyes pointed east and west at the same time. We used to say that it was impossible to sneak up on him because of his superhuman field of vision. That is, unless you walked straight at him.

    Most Marines get a nickname during their career. Sometimes they stick, other times they fade away.

    Mine was simple, and only used by a few. Marty, that was the best anyone could come up with. Occasionally McFLy would work its way in there. Mostly, the black guys, or Dark Green Marines, used it for me and I liked it.

    Gordon collected nicknames like loose change. My favorites were Gordy Fresh, BZO (short for Battle Sight Zero, the resting position for the iron sights on an M16 rifle), but most simply referred to him as ‘The Gordon.’

    He was a constant fuck up. Despite not intending to, trouble seemed to follow him wherever he went. He was slight of stature and chain-smoked Marlboro cigarettes. He was an easy target when a corporal or sergeant needed a scapegoat.

    To the members of his platoon, he became a sort of mascot. It was okay for them to pick on him, but if someone else started in on him, the fist would fly.

    I got to know him when I started whoring myself out to our mechanized gun trucks when the battle of Fallujah got too close quarters to drop mortars on the city anymore. I’d volunteered to go over to my best friend, Matt’s platoon, who was in support of Bravo Company, where one of my other best friends was attached with the scout sniper platoon, Kirk.

Fallujah in November, 2004 was big news. The largest urban battle in the history of the Marine Corps. My battalion, First Battalion, Eighth Marine Regiment, simply 1/8, was in the middle of it.

By the time I came over from my 81mm mortar platoon to fill in for casualties in the gun trucks our job had turned into the terrifying tedium of clearing houses, and providing support to Bravo Company by peppering insurgent held buildings with heavy machine gun and vehicle mounted missiles.

A typical day in Fallujah followed somewhat of a routine. We’d patrol out to a neighborhood and clear, house by house, collecting any weapons and ammo stashed inside the homes. If there were insurgents there, we’d kill them, hopefully.

The houses were full of weapons. We kept one open top “high back” Humvee with us that all the collected armament would go into. At the end of the day, it was taken back to our main firm base Ft. Apache, in the middle of the city where it would get thrown into a pile and eventually burned or detonated.

We entrusted the responsibility of this Humvee to our own Gordon. He was not to leave the vehicle. That was a good place for him. Machine Gun Kelly’s crossfire would not endanger anyone.

By late in the afternoon, we had worked our way through a few blocks of houses and filled The Gordon’s truck to overflowing with AK 47s, RPGs, and magazines full of ammo. Our patrol took us to a major intersection with a main road, and we needed to clear a small lane of houses on the main drag before making our way back south to our firm base at an elementary school. This caused us to temporarily split the five vehicles. Gordon and the cache he carried were at the intersection.

    The truck I was with, 2A, was at the head of the patrol when a column of Army Bradley Fighting Vehicles drove by in a cloud of dust and noise. Five minutes later, Ryan called Gordon on the radio, and he didn't answer. Smitty, the gunner, swung around to see where Gordon was.

   “Where the fuck is Gordon’ truck?” He says in his raspy, gravelly voice, which came off as a barely audible mumble over the sound of the engine.

     “Turn around,” said Smitty. “I can’t see Gordon.” We quickly spun the armored Humvee around and drove the 100 feet back to the intersection to see what was going on.

   Gordon was no longer at the intersection. His truck was gone, and there was no sight of him, Sergeant. Colton jumps from the passenger seat and heads over to 2C, the nearest truck to where Gordon once was. I followed, scanning the street to see if I could spot the wayward Humvee.

    When I arrived, Colton was rubbing his eyes. “Fuck,” he’s said. “What do you mean, he drove off?”

    Ryan said, “I just looked up, and he was gone.”

    “Call the lieutenant.” Colton said. He swiveled on his heel and looked at me. “Get in the truck. We have to find numb nuts, like yesterday.” We both sprinted back to our truck and hop in to hear Ryan call over the radio.

    “Wolverine Two Actual, this is Wolverine 2 Charlie. Over.”

    “This is Wolverine Two. Over.”

    “The, uh, we have a problem, sir. Over.”

    “What is it? Over.”

    “Um, Sir, we’ve lost The Gordon…Over.”

    “Get off the radio.”

    Our platoon commander Lt. Mendez was loved by the members of 2nd platoon. He’d earned a nickname that he’d embraced: “The Sir.”

    The Sir was back at Bravo Company’s firm base, several minutes away, and one of his Marines was now missing with a truck full of enemy weapons. I don’t know what was going through his head, but I’m sure it was all action. Marines and vehicles don’t just disappear.

    Someone’s family had sent Second Platoon a package of four small hand held walkie talkies that they’d used infrequently to see if we could trigger IEDs. The enemy would use these same types of radios to wire into the nose of an artillery shell buried along the side of a road as a trigger mechanism. One of these was in our truck and it came to life. It was the lieutenant.

    “You’d better shit me a Gordon right now.”

    Smitty yelled down between his knees from up in the turret. “Gordon has one of those radios in his truck. I remember, we couldn’t trust him to operate a real radio. Maybe he’s on that.”

    Through the static of the little handheld radio, I could hear the frantic movement of The Sir as he scrambled to gear up and load the rest of the platoon for the unfolding rescue mission.

    “Okay, here’s what we are going to do,” said Colton. “We’re going to cruise this area,” pointing at the computer screen on the Blue Force Tracker mounted between the driver and passenger seats, “in a grid, keying that little handheld and hopefully he has it on and we’ll hear him. That, or we’ll spot his vehicle.”

    With that the four of our trucks started out, ghetto cruising the most dangerous place on the planet. Most of the roads and alleys were completely uncleared. Insurgents watched us pass by like we were looking for our lost chihuahua.

    “Gordon, do you copy? Over,” we’d say into the radio. Our reply was a hiss of static and dead silence.

    “Gordon, come back. Over.”

    Around 20 minutes into our grid search, our radio suddenly came to life, and we caught a brief, faint whimper that could have been Gordon’s voice.

    “Stop!” Shouted Colton. “That was him. Back up to where we heard that voice.”

    The truck lurched to a halt and we reversed, and there’s nothing on the radio coming back anymore.

    “Keep driving. He’s out here somewhere,” said Colton.

    We drove a grid around the spot, creeping past houses, hoping to hear a faint voice on the radio again.

    “Shhh,” the radio hissed. “...olverine….over.” It was Gordon, closer now.

    We drive past a house with a green gate sitting at an oblique angle to the road and see the Humvee. “There!” I shout. Gordon’s truck was backed up to the wall of the house, bumper touching the concrete. We reverse into the drive and there is Gordon, wide eyed with a cigarette trembling from his lips. He’s got his M16 pointed out one window and an AK47 sitting in the seat next to him pointing out the other.

    He was okay, to everyone’s relief. Let the browbeating commence.

    “What the fuck, Gordon?” said Colton. “Why the fuck are you out here? What the fuck were you thinking?”

    Through the mix of panic and relief, Gordon explained that he’d been sitting (sleeping) in his truck when he thought he saw us drive off. So, he gunned it to catch up, but we were throwing too much dust up and moving too fast, weaving through backstreets. When he caught up, he realized it wasn’t actually us, but was the column of Bradleys blowing through the city on their way to God knows where.

    He then turned around to come back to where we were and got lost. That’s when he did the only sensible thing he’d done all day and found a decently defensible position and waited for us to find him.

    “Radio the Sir,” said Colton. “Tell him we’ve found The Gordon.”